The 5th Annual Team Experience Awards!

As teased in this week's podcast installment, it's time for The Team Experience Awards, our fifth yearly celebration! While Nathaniel begins his own Film Bitch Awards, here is our growing team's turn to bestow their year-end accolades without our host.

Last year we went all-in on Todd Haynes's Carol, and this year we have another favorite that receives quite a few prizes: Barry Jenkins's Moonlight. And this wasn't even close: the film was the only one to appear on every ballot in at least one category and was a landslide victory to the big prize. Consider Moonlight the consensus favorite here at The Film Experience. On to our awards:

BEST PICTURE
Moonlight
Runner-Up: The Lobster

BEST UNRELEASED FILM
Personal Shopper
Runner-Up: The Ornithologist

Click to read more ...

NYFF: Personal Shopper

Jason reporting from NYFF on the spooky and stylish reunion between Clouds of Sils Maria's director and star...

When I first read that Olivier Assayas was making a haunted house movie starring Kristen Stewart my reaction was both "a record needle scratching to a halt sound-effect" and "a cartoon figure running through a wall only to leave a perfect cut-out of their shape in said wall." That is to say I was taken aback, but I wanted to be at that place immediately. Important Directors, those who get the word "important" capitalized, look down on genre too often. But it's almost always fascinating to see what these talents make of the well-trod constructs and conceits - how they twist and shape them to their personal auteurial demands.

And you could say ghosts hovering over sad stylish actresses has been a theme that Assayas has returned to time and again...

Click to read more ...

Cannes's Latest Booing Victims

It wouldn't be Cannes without the reports of boos from the always feisty crowd. While reviews and early word from the festival's first days were mostly positive, the jeers are just starting to begin. This year's unluckiest victims have been Personal Shopper and The Neon Demon.

If the reported response to The Neon Demon is to be believed, it may be one for future Cannes lore. The most vocal detractors were hurling obscenities at the screen and many responses were repulsed by the film's more twisted, violent elements and shallow veneer. But the question remains: What else did they expect from a Nicolas Winding Refn horror film? Perhaps the boos themselves could have been expected as well, given the reaction to his previous effort Only God Forgives.

Personal Shopper reunites director Olivier Assayas with his Clouds of Sils Maria star Kristen Stewart as an assistant suffering from ghostly visitations. Its many early fans have defended it as misunderstood, ambiguous, and difficult to categorize, and Stewart has garnered some Best Actress buzz for the festival. By my estimation, the film has inspired some of the best writing of the festival, like Richard Lawson's aching take over at Vanity Fair. The first international trailer promises something unique indeed:

Neither film needs to worry: they join the long tradition of films that have been booed at the festival, including Taxi Driver, Marie Antoinette, The Tree of Life, and Inglourious Basterds. Not every film booed at Cannes turns out like Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny - so consider our excitement for both Shopper and Demon increased.

Have you ever experienced booing in the cinema?

Which Kristen Stewart do you fancy?

Modern, perhaps even supernatural, glam.......

Personal Shopper

....... or period ingenue?

Cafe Society

Cannes is 6 days away and it will be all about Kristen, with two films in the main selection. Information about the films screening keeps trickling in everyday, including these 2 photos. And today the full screening schedule was released. Our dates with Kristen are Wednesday May 11th for Cafe Society and Tuesday May 17th for Personal Shopper.

Which look do you prefer, modern or period? Woody Allen or Olivier Assayas?